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Don’t let sleeping data dogs lie


Tuesday, September 04, 2007

By Steve Ranger at Silicon.com

What if your credit card details, address, date of birth, bank account data - everything about you that an identity thief could possibly want - were stolen by hackers or accidentally leaked onto the internet by companies you thought you could trust?

If you think that sounds bad, it might just have happened to you already and if you live in the UK you would never find out about it. Until, that is, you discover someone has used your details in an identity fraud.

Apart from a few regulated sectors of industry, if a company or government agency loses your sensitive personal data, they don’t have to warn you. As things stand, they don’t have to tell anyone at all.

In California the picture is brighter and the state’s approach is one we should consider emulating. There a law known as SB 1386 obliges state agencies or businesses to disclose data security breaches to residents if their unencrypted personal information may have been compromised.

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